


To be us, To take this plunge (To forgive and forget)

by wordninja



Series: Alone (Until I Get Home) [2]
Category: Sterek - Fandom, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Lydia Martin, Derek Hale & Lydia Martin Friendship, Gen, POV Stiles Stilinski, Pack Feels, Past Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, pre-relationship Stiles and Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:23:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22425889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordninja/pseuds/wordninja
Summary: When Jackson leaves (for good, if not for good reasons) Lydia is heartbroken."She’s so strong and bright and fierce that Stiles, along with everyone else, kind of forgets she’s also a heartbroken teenage girl with a shit-ton of issues on her plate. At least until after a pack meeting, when everyone is kind of puttering around, talking in groups of two or three, and Stiles notices Lydia’s missing at the same time he sees Derek slip quietly out the front door to the porch. Stiles’ natural curiosity has him following, though he stops on the inside of the screen door, leaning into the shadows against the wall there."
Relationships: Derek Hale & Lydia Martin, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Alone (Until I Get Home) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30736
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	To be us, To take this plunge (To forgive and forget)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ocdindeed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocdindeed/gifts).

> For McShipIt for reminding me that I wrote Teen Wolf once upon a time. I had this sitting in my drafts for...7 years. So there's that.

When Jackson leaves (for good, if not for good reasons) Lydia is heartbroken.

Of course, heartbroken for Lydia is a bit different than it is for most girls. Or at least, what popular rom-coms tell Stiles is normal for heartbroken girls.

She doesn’t start looking frumpy like she’s quit caring. She also doesn’t start looking slutty-sexy, like she’s proving she’s already moved on and is open for business again. She is simply flawless, as usual.

She does quit pretending she’s dumb though, which sends Stiles in a brief, terrifying spiral of renewed crush. He’s always known Lydia was smart, really smart. But seeing her flaunt it in school, openly? Watching her own it? It’s crazy sexy. Once the bright flash of her wears off a little he also feels proud. Like, really fucking proud -- that she’s so smart and brave and unafraid and that he gets to be her friend. Stiles isn’t in love with her, but he’s pretty certain he’s never going to love anyone else quite the same way he loves Lydia.

She’s smart at pack meetings, too. Now that she knows all about Beacon Hills’ brand of crazy, she’s smarter than the Bestiary and Google put together. Even Derek listens (sometimes) and respects her input (mostly) and asks questions (once, when Stiles may have technically been eavesdropping a little bit).

She’s so strong and bright and fierce that Stiles, along with everyone else, kind of forgets she’s also a heartbroken teenage girl with a shit-ton of issues on her plate. At least until after a pack meeting, when everyone is kind of puttering around, talking in groups of two or three, and Stiles notices Lydia’s missing at the same time he sees Derek slip quietly out the front door to the porch. Stiles’ natural curiosity has him following, though he stops on the inside of the screen door, leaning into the shadows against the wall there.

He sees Lydia sitting on the steps. Well, mostly he sees her back. Her head is bowed, and the bright fall of her hair is a curtain over her face, but it leaves it her shoulders naked and he can see them shaking, just a little, and he knows she’s crying.

If Stiles knows that, Derek must. He must have known before he went outside, with the werewolf hearing and all. The way Derek is hovering uncertainly behind Lydia, shoulders drawn in and up, clearly radiates discomfort. But he went out there anyways and Stiles smiles at the warm flare it makes him feel, the same as it always does when Derek acts like a real boy. 

Derek stands still and awkward until Lydia lets out the tiniest sob ever (seriously, like a tiny wounded kitten, and it’s so pitiful because Lydia is not a kitten she is a fucking lion, and Stiles hurts for her) and then Derek’s shoulders fall and he walks forward, sitting next to her on the steps. He doesn’t touch her, but he’s close enough to wrap his arm around her shoulders and Stiles is suddenly irrationally irritated that he isn’t the one sitting next to her, close enough to touch. His mouth opens before he fully realizes he’s going to say something about it, ridiculous and ill-timed as ever, but Derek gives a sharp shake of his head, an obvious no. Stiles frowns because Lydia can’t see Derek so why would he be telling her no, then he realizes it’s for him, that Derek is telling him, no, to stay put. Of course Derek knows he’s there. 

Derek just sits there and Lydia keeps crying quietly and when Stiles can’t stand it anymore, he’s going out there, Derek or no, she stops and rolls her shoulders back in a way that Stiles recognizes and wants to cheer for. She swings her hair back over her shoulders and raises her hands to wipe her cheeks. Derek pulls an actual handkerchief from somewhere, and Lydia takes it and dabs her cheeks like it’s not totally incongruous for a man who barely has a house to have a hanky available.

Their silence continues while Lydia composes herself, and Stiles kind of thinks he can almost see it around her, aura-like, as if was pulling power from the air itself. Wouldn’t surprise him at all.

Finally, Lydia takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and says, “Redheads are horrible criers. We get all splotchy and gross. Not a good look for me.” And again Stiles wants to jump to her defense, because he hadn’t been lying the time he’d said she was beautiful when she cried, but Derek doesn’t say a word, just takes the hanky back and tucks it away again.

Lydia keeps looking forward as she says, “He said he had to go away, to re-learn the ways life was beautiful. Jackson Whittemore said those words. To me.” Stiles gets the wonder and astonishment and disbelief in her voice then, because Jackson didn’t seem like the type to have words like those, but Derek doesn’t look surprised or exasperated, on the side of his face Stiles can see, at least. 

“He said he spent too long focusing on all the ugly, that he forgot about all the things that were beautiful about it, too,” she continues, and Derek hums in a way that could mean anything or nothing, and Stiles wants to scream at his crappy comforting skills. But Lydia doesn’t seem to mind, because she keeps going.

“He said he was doing it for him, but for me too. Because I deserved someone who could see the world that way.” Her hand moves up to her hair, tucks it behind her ear, and her voice catches a little in the middle, and Stiles thinks as hard as he can at Derek to HUG HER NOW YOU MORON, but Derek is still and silent. After a moment Lydia says, “And I love him for that, for becoming someone who can see that, who wants to be better for me. For finally growing up and not being so obstinately blind to all the good things in his life.” Another deep breath and her voice hardens a little, takes on the edge that Stiles is used to hearing, “But I hate him for it, too. I hate him for something so ridiculous that I hate myself for it, too.”

She’s quiet again, and her head tilts down just a bit before she continues. “Why couldn’t I be something beautiful enough for him to stay?” Stiles hears everything she means but isn’t saying; why couldn’t I be enough to fix him, enough to make him stay, just enough?

She’s crying again, and Stiles is absolutely certain that his heart is breaking for her. 

Derek continues being silent, but he shifts just enough so that his side and hers are touching. Not pressing, just resting, barely, against each other. Lydia shakes her head with a self-deprecating little laugh and holds her hand out imperiously for the hanky Derek is already reaching for. After a moment, when Stiles thinks maybe it’s over, maybe that was enough for Lydia to be able to deal, Derek actually speaks.

“Laura,” he starts out with the gravelly voice of someone who hasn’t spoken in a while and clears his throat, and somehow that little noise of uncertainty breaks Stiles’ heart all over again, “Laura was my big sister, and mostly a big pain in my ass. She always gave me shit about everything.” Stiles grins at the fond exasperation under the hurt in Derek’s voice, lets himself imagine a younger Derek complaining in a petulant teenaged voice to his parents about his irritating older sister.

“She constantly picked on me, and told embarrassing stories about me to anyone who would listen, and took my favorite tee shirts and then swore she hadn’t.” They’re all silent a moment, letting the words sink through the rich evening air. “Laura loved beautiful things. She loved things that were smart and fast and flashy and beautiful. It was her biggest weakness. She’d work extra shifts to buy whatever new thing had caught her eye--shoes and dresses, and horrible snobby movies with subtitles, and that Camaro,” he adds with a nod to the big black car in the yard.

Stiles has never heard Derek share quite like this (Derek speaking in the past tense is a rare thing) and while part of him is absorbing like a sponge, another part is thinking he still sucks at the whole comforting girls thing, because how will this make Lydia feel better? Lydia breaks his train of thought by saying, “She would have loved me then,” and it almost sounds right, like insanely self-assured Lydia usually sounds, but there’s still a shade of uncertainty.

Until Derek (finally!) scoots over, takes her chin in his hand, and turns Lydia’s face until they’re looking right at each other (and for a moment that is painfully hot and uncomfortable Stiles feels overcome with jealousy because Derek is going to kiss her and his brain starts screaming NOT FAIR THE TWO OF THEM WHY UNIVERSE WHY?!) and Derek says with utter sincerity, 

“Lydia, she would have gone full lesbian for you.”

Lydia’s peals of laughter are surprised and honest and it’s so good. Maybe Derek is better at this than he thought. Derek nudges his shoulder into Lydia’s and she nudges hers back into his, and Derek has a little smile on his face, a soft, sweet one, and Lydia is standing up and turning and now Stiles can see her face, so he knows it’s real, knows she’ll be okay.

She goes in, and Stiles goes out, sits down next to Derek--who’s leaning back on his forearms, looking out over the yard at the end of the day. Stiles says, “Didn’t know you had it in you.” Derek doesn’t smirk or frown or hit him, or even move really. Just keeps the almost smile and keeps looking out at the fading day.

“She reminds me of Laura, sometimes.” He says it easy, so Stiles is easy with his words, too. “Yeah?” It could be a question or a statement, and Stiles will let Derek choose how to take it.

“Yeah. When she’s about to get in your face about something, she gets this look,” Derek kind of widens his eyes a little, purses his mouth, and Stiles can see Lydia perfectly in that look, a combination of faux calm in the Bambi eyes and blistering words held back by lemon-sour lips. Stiles chuckles, says, “Spot on impression, dude. Do you practice that one?” Derek just shakes his head a little, not in a way that means shut up Stiles, you’re an idiot, just as a general appreciation for the whole scene.

“I’d do it behind Laura’s back while she was whining to our mom about whatever I’d done to piss her off. Mom would try not to laugh but she always would, and Laura would just get so mad at us. She’d scream and chase me around the room and Mom and I would just laugh, and I’d run and Mom would try to stop Lo, and it would just turn into this crazy game of chase tag until Lo was laughing, too.”

Stiles swallows around the tightness in his throat and looks at Derek. His eyes are too shiny, but he’s grinning and Stiles wants to have the hanky now, thank you, because Derek is so beautiful he wants to cry.

“She’d always hug me after that, and punch my shoulder too hard and say I was lucky she was such an awesome big sister. She was right, that brat.” Derek shakes his head again, and the sun is still setting, sitting huge and red and stunning on the horizon, like it was holding out this moment, this quiet evening, for as long as possible. 

Derek looks at him then and Stiles is, at the same time, stunned by the honesty there and hit with the interesting tangential thought that it was kind of funny; he’d loved Lydia, in one way or another, for the better part of his life. He’d gone from loving her one way to loving her another way entirely. 

He hadn’t known that he would love Derek Hale for loving her, too.


End file.
